Advanced microfabrication techniques used to construct optical, magnetic, and microfluidic nanostructures. These structures are included in functional devices such as microcavity lasers and high density magnetic storage media.

Today, we can produce structures with lateral sizes as small as 6 nm by combining electron beam lithography and dry etching. Dr. Scherer's research laboratory is built around producing such nanostructures and applying them to new optelectonic, magneto-optic, and high-speed electronic devices. The aim of his research group is to develop functional devices which use their reduced geometries to obtain higher speed, greater efficiencies, and which can be integrated into systems in large numbers. Successful integration of such devices in large numbers requires detailed understanding and optimization of both the individual processing steps as well as the device performance.